Oracle & Open Source is the first book to tie together the commercial world of Oracle and the free-wheeling world of open source software. As this book reveals, these two worlds are not as far apart as they may seem. Today, there are many excellent and freely available software tools that Oracle developers and database administrators can use, at no cost, to improve their own coding productivity and their system's performance. Moreover, many of the finest Oracle developers are now making their source code freely available so their peers can build upon this code base. Oracle Corporation is even porting its RDBMS to Linux and starting to incorporate a growing number of open source tools in the company's own software. Oracle & Open Source describes close to 100 open source tools you can use for Oracle development and database administration, from large and widely known open source systems (like Linux, Perl, Apache, TCL/Tk and Python) to more Oracle-specific tools (like Orasoft, Orac, OracleTool, and OraSnap). You'll learn how to obtain the software and how to adapt it to best advantage. The book abounds with code examples, download and installation instructions, and helpful usage hints. Not only does it tell you how to find and use existing open source code; Oracle & Open Source gives you the details and the motivation to build your own open source contributions and release them to the Oracle community. You'll learn all about tools like the Oracle Call Interface (OCI) and Perl-DBI (Database Interface), which provide the glue allowing new open source tools to link into commercial Oracle software. With Oracle & Open Source as a guide, you'll discover an enormous number of highly effective open source tools, while getting involved with the thriving community of open source development.

Net8 is the fundamental Oracle technology that allows Oracle services and clients to communicate with each other over a network. Net8 is most often used to connect client software to Oracle database servers. It may also be used to connect database servers to one another, allowing communication between distributed databases. This practical guide provides the information that readers, especially database administrators, need to know in order to install configure, tune, and troubleshoot Net8. It discusses how Oracle's network architecture, products, and name resolution methods work, and it provides the details of client and server configuration using a variety of Oracle protocols and networking products, including: The Oracle Internet Directory (OID), Oracle's implementation of the standard Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP). This directory can be used to maintain a central repository of net service names that can be referenced by all clients. Oracle Names, a networking component used mainly in earlier versions of Oracle, that allows net service names to be defined centrally. Multi-Threaded Server (MTS), an environment in which the client connections share access to a pool of shared server processes. Oracle Connection Manager, a Net8 component that acts much like a router and provides protocol conversion, connection concentration, and access control. The book also describes the utilities Oracle provides to help manage a Net8 environment; these include the Listener Control Utility (lsnrctl), the Oracle Names Control Utility (namesctl), the Oracle Connection Manager Control Utility (cmctl), tnsping, and Net8 Assistant. In addition, it provides a variety of networking troubleshooting techniques and commonly encountered Net8 configuration problems, and provides complete syntax for all networking files and commands.

SQL (Structured Query Language) is the heart of a relational database management system. It's the language used to query the database, to create new tables in the database, to update and delete database fields, and to set privileges in the database. Oracle SQL: The Essential Reference is for everyone who needs to access an Oracle database using SQL--developers, DBAs, designers, and managers. SQL is based on research dating back to the late 1960s, but its first commercial release was in the RDBMS announced by the fledgling Oracle Corporation in 1979. Since that time, every other database vendor has adopted SQL, and ANSI and the ISO have made it a standard. Although vendors diverge in their extensions to SQL, the core language is standard across vendor boundaries. Despite SQL's long history and relative simplicity, few developers and database administrators are truly masters of SQL. The constant stream of vendor enhancements, the hard-won experience in tuning SQL for best performance, and the requirements of particular operational environments mean that there is always more to learn about SQL. Oracle SQL: The Essential Reference delivers all the information needed to keep ahead of the learning curve on standard SQL and Oracle's extensions to it. This single, concise reference volume will hold its own against a stack of Oracle manuals and even yield insights and examples not available in those manuals. There are chapters on basic SQL elements (naming requirements, column types, pseudo-types, data conversion rules, operators); Data Definition Language (DDL) and Data Manipulation Language (DML); common language elements (constraints, storage clause, predicates); SQL functions; PL/SQL (including procedures, functions, and packages); SQL*Plus, and Oracle SQL optimization and tuning. The book covers Oracle 8 i, release 8.1.6.

Parallel processing is becoming increasingly important to database computing. Databases often grow to enormous sizes and are accessed by huge numbers of users. This growth strains the ability of single-processor and single-computer systems to handle the load. More and more, organizations are turning to parallel processing technologies to give them the performance, scalability, and reliability they need. Anyone managing a large database, a database with a large number of concurrent users, or a database with high availability requirements--such as a heavily trafficked e-commerce site--needs to know how to get the most out of Oracle's parallel processing technologies. Oracle Parallel Processing is the first book to describe the full range of parallel processing capabilities in the Oracle environment, including those new to Oracle8 i. It covers: What is parallel processing--features, benefits, and pitfalls. Who needs it and who doesn't? What features does Oracle provide, and what are their requirements and overhead implications? The book answers these questions and presents the various parallel architectures (SMP, or Symmetric Multiprocessing; MPP, or Massively Parallel Processing; clustered systems; and NUMA, or Non Uniform Memory Access). Oracle parallel execution--Oracle supports a variety of parallel execution features in the database. The book covers the use, administration, and tuning of these features: parallel query, parallel data loading, parallel DML (Data Manipulation Language), parallel object creation (through DDL, or Data Definition Language), and parallel replication propagation. Oracle Parallel Server--Oracle also provides the OPS option, which work to be spread over both multiple CPUs and multiple nodes. This book covers OPS architecture, requirements, administration, tuning, storage management, recovery, and application failover issues. Oracle Parallel Processing also contains several case studies showing how to use Oracle's parallel features in a variety of real-world situations.

This pocket reference provides quick reference information that will help you use SQLPlus, Oracle's interactive query tool. It summarizes all of the SQLPlus syntax, including the syntax for new Oracle8 i release 8.1.6 features. SQLPlus is available at every Oracle site--from the largest data warehouse to the smallest single-user system--and it's a critical tool for virtually every Oracle user. Despite its wide use, few developers and DBAs know how powerful a tool SQLPlus can be. This book boils down the most vital information from Gennick's best-selling book, Oracle SQLPlus: The Definitive Guide, into an accessible summary. It concisely describes interacting with SQLPlus, selecting data, formatting reports with SQLPlus, and tuning SQL queries. It also contains quick references to the SQLPlus commands and format elements. This book is an indispensable companion to O'Reilly bestselling book, Oracle SQLPlus: The Definitive Guide, but it does not replace it; the larger book is truly the definitive guide, suitable for readers at all levels of expertise. The definitive guide describes the many tasks that SQLPlus can perform, and provides a tutorial on many SQLPlus topics. But this quick reference is an excellent, portable resource for readers who want a pocket-sized summary of SQLPlus capabilities and a reminder of how to issue specific commands and formatting options for SQLPlus. Table of Contents: Interacting with SQLPlus Selecting Data Formatting Reports Tuning SQL SQLPlus Format Elements SQLPlus Command Reference

This concise book contains detailed information about Oracle internals -- information that's not readily available to Oracle customers. It lays a foundation for advanced performance tuning of the Oracle database. Based on Oracle8i release 8.1, the book describes many of the secrets of Oracle's internal services: data structures, algorithms, and undocumented Oracle system statistics. Main topics include: Waits - how Oracle processes communicate via semaphores, and how to use the Oracle wait statistics to identify the source of performance problems. Latches - how they keep multiple processes from inspecting protected data structures at the same time, and how to examine and control latch behavior and statistics. Locks - how they work with latches to protect data structures (locks allow multiple sessions to share resources in some cases), and how locks affect performance. There is also a detailed discussion of instance locks, which are used in parallel server environments. Memory - how Oracle uses memory (e.g., the various elements of the System Global Area), and how Oracle dynamically allocates and manages memory. Oracle8i Internal Services is aimed especially at administrators and developers who need detailed internal information to do advanced performance tuning. The book will expand your repertoire of tuning solutions and troubleshooting techniques by explaining how you can use Oracle's hidden parameters and undocumented system statistics to best advantage. NOTE: The author has collected the scripts he has developed for tuning and analysis into a toolkit (known as APT, for Advanced Performance Tuning). These scripts access the Oracle X$ tables directly and provide information not otherwise available. The scripts are available to readers for free from the O'Reilly web site.

Visit the catalog page for Oracle Database Administration: The Essential RefeVisit the errata page for Oracle Database Administration: The Essential RefeDownload the supplemental electronic content for Oracle Database Administration: The Essential Refe Oracle database administration requires a vast amount of information and an ability to perform a myriad of tasks--from installation to tuning to network troubleshooting to overall daily administration. Oracle provides many tools for performing these tasks; the trick is knowing what tool is right for the job, what commands you need to issue (and when), and what parameters and privileges you need to set. And, as every DBA knows, you need to know how do all this under pressure, while you face crisis after crisis. This book provides a concise reference to the enormous store of information an Oracle DBA needs every day (as well as what's needed only when disaster strikes). It's crammed full of quick-reference tables, task lists, and other summary material that both novice and expert DBAs will use time and time again. It covers the commands and operations new to Oracle8, but also provides Oracle7 information for sites still running earlier versions. Oracle Database Administration provides two types of material: DBA tasks--chapters summarizing how to perform critical DBA functions: installation, performance tuning, preventing data loss, networking, security and monitoring, auditing, query optimization, and the use of various Oracle tools and utilities DBA reference--chapters providing a quick reference to the Oracle instance and database, the initialization (INIT.ORA) parameters, the SQL statements commonly used by DBAs, the data dictionary tables, the system privileges and roles, and the SQLPlus, Export, Import, and SQLLoader syntax The book also includes a resource summary with references to additional books, Web sites, and other online and offline resources of special use to Oracle DBAs. Oracle Database Administration is the single essential reference you'll turn to again and again. If you must choose only one book to use at the office, keep at home, or carry to a site you're troubleshooting, this will be that book.

Any organization that uses the Oracle relational database management system (RDBMS) these days needs to use multiple databases. There are many reasons to use more than a single database in a distributed database system: Different databases may be associated with particular business functions, such as manufacturing or human resources. Databases may be aligned with geographical boundaries, such as a behemoth database at a headquarters site and smaller databases at regional offices. Two different databases may be required to access the same data in different ways, such as an order entry database whose transactions are aggregated and analyzed in a data warehouse. A busy Internet commerce site may create multiple copies of the same database to attain horizontal scalability. A copy of a production database may be created to serve as a development test bed. Tunability Platform autonomy Fault tolerance Scalability Location transparency Site autonomy Introduction to Distributed Database Systems SQLNet and Net8 Configuration and Administration Distributed Database Security Designing the Distributed System Oracle's Distributed System Implementation Sample Configurations 8. Engineering Considerations Oracle Replication Architecture Advanced Replication Option Installation Basic Replication Multi-Master Replication Updateable Snapshots Procedural Replication Conflict Avoidance and Resolution Techniques In a distributed database environment, data in two or more databases is accessible as if it were in a single database. Usually, the different databases are on different servers, which may be located at the same site or a continent away. Communication between the servers takes place via SQLNet (for Oracle7) or Net8 (for Oracle8). Distributed database environments offer a number of benefits over single- database systems, including: This book describes how you can use multiple databases and the distributed features of Oracle to best advantage. It covers: Table of contents: Part I: The Distributed System Part II: Replication Part III: Appendixes Appendix A: Built-in Packages for Distributed Systems Appendix B: Scripts

This book is the definitive guide to SQLPlus. If you want to take best advantage of the power and flexibility of this popular Oracle tool, you need this book. SQLPlus is an interactive query tool that is ubiquitous in the Oracle world. It is present in every Oracle installation and is available to almost every Oracle developer and database administrator. SQLPlus has been shipped with Oracle since at least version 6. It continues to be supported and enhanced with each new version of Oracle, including Oracle8 and Oracle8i. It is still the only widely available tool for writing SQL scripts. Despite this wide availability and usage, few developers and DBAs know how powerful SQLPlus really is. This book introduces SQLPlus, includes a quick reference to all of its syntax options, and, most important, provides chapters that describe, in step-by-step fashion, how to perform all of the tasks that Oracle developers and DBAs want to perform with SQLPlus -- and maybe some they didn't realize they COULD perform with SQLPlus. You will learn how to write and execute script files, generate ad hoc reports, extract data from the database, query the data dictionary tables, customize your SQLPlus environment, and use the SQLPlus administrative features (new in Oracle8i). This book is an indispensable resource for readers who are new to SQLPlus, a task-oriented learning tool for those who are already using it, and a quick reference for every user. A table of contents follows: Preface Introduction to SQLPlus Interacting with SQLPlus Generating Reports with SQLPlus Writing SQLPlus Scripts Extracting Data with SQLPlus Exploring Your Database with SQLPlus Advanced Scripting Tuning and Timing The Product User Profile Administration with SQLPlus Customizing Your SQLPlus Environment A. SQLPlus Command Reference B. Connect Strings and the SQLPlus Command Appendices

Security in a relational database management system is complex, and too few DBAs, system administrators, managers, and developers understand how Oracle implements system and database security. This book gives you the guidance you need to protect your databases. Oracle security has many facets: Establishing an organization's security policy and plan Protecting system files and passwords Controlling access to database objects (tables, views, rows, columns, etc.) Building appropriate user profiles, roles, and privileges Monitoring system access via audit trails Oracle and Security Oracle System Files Oracle Database Objects The Oracle Data Dictionary Default Roles and User Accounts Profiles, Passwords, and Synonyms Developing a Database Security Plan Installing and Starting Oracle Developing a Simple Security Application Developing an Audit Plan Developing a Sample Audit Application Backing Up and Recovering a Database Using the Oracle Enterprise Manager Maintaining User Accounts Using the Oracle Security Server Using the Internet and the Web Using Extra-Cost Options Oracle Security describes how these basic database security features are implemented and provides many practical strategies for securing Oracle systems and databases. It explains how to use the Oracle Enterprise Manager and Oracle Security Server to enhance your site's security, and it touches on such advanced security features as encryption, Trusted Oracle, and various Internet and World Wide Web protection strategies. A table of contents follows: Preface Part I: Security in an Oracle System Part II: Implementing Security Part III: Enhanced Oracle Security Appendix A. References

The books in O'Reilly's Oracle series are authoritative -- they tell the whole story about complex topics, ranging from performance tuning to the use of packages in PL/SQL to new technologies like Power Objects. And they're independent; they're alternatives for readers who need to know how products and features really work. They're packed with real-world advice and techniques from practitioners in the field, and they come with disks containing code you can use immediately in your own applications. O'Reilly is the alternative for Oracle people who need to solve problems -- and solve them now.Performance tuning is crucial in any modern relational database management system. Too many organizations respond to Oracle performance problems by throwing money at these problems -- by buying larger and more expensive computers or by hiring expert consultants. But there's a lot you can do on your own to increase dramatically the performance of your existing system. Whatever version of Oracle you're running -- from Version 6 to Oracle8, proper tuning can save your organization a huge amount of money in additional equipment, extra memory, and hardware upgrades.The first edition of Oracle Performance Tuning became a classic for programmers, managers, database administrators, system administrators, and anyone who cares about improving the performance of an Oracle system. This second edition contains 400 pages of updated material updating on Oracle features, incorporating advice about disk striping and mirroring, RAID, client-server, distributed databases, MPPS, SMPs, and other architectures. It also includes chapters on parallel server, parallel query, backup and recovery, the Oracle Performance Pack, and more.